12 Years as a Slave
by JPalmerGirl
Summary: When a mysterious letter from Korea arrives at NCIS addressed to a boy named Nam, The Team soon takes it down to a translator where they find that it had been sent by a Korean Slave girl named Soo, and with this simple discovery, everything they thought they knew is sent into a tailspin. Who is Soo? And why does Jimmy Palmer link up to a Korean Slave boy named Nam?
1. Chapter 1

_"여러분__! 슬레이브 아이가__! 위대한 지도자를 위해서 기도__."_

_The young toddler looked up when his Master called to him in their native language of Korean. The child stumbled over, trying to keep hold of the large refreshments tray he was told to hold. The Master caught the child by his shoulder and thrust the child down into a prayer position in front of a portrait of their Great Leader. The toddler instantly started praying, but behind the Master's family. _

_He couldn't be in the same air space as his Master and Mistress. The child's name was 남 __also know as 'Nam', his full family name was IM용남 __or Im-Yong Nam. But only his older sister, Soo used their family name anymore. Slaves didn't have family names, they were things to be bought and sold...not to be treated like humans. _

_His mother name had been Eunice Waters and she was born in London, England. She was born a free woman, to a free and wealthy family. Aunt Ta, the older native North Korean woman who slept with them, would tell Nam and Soo stories about how people in most parts of the world didn't own slaves. _

_That everyone was treated equally and that their mother was free before she was kidnapped and smuggled into North Korea. But the smugglers were caught and their mother was sold into slavery instead of going to a concentration camp. That was where she met their father, Im-Yong Hao, a fellow slave, he was only half Korean but he took after his own father, who was a Korean rebel._

_That was how Nam and Soo came into being. They were born-slaves and if their Master had anything to do with it. They were going to stay that way. It was like what Soo told him whenever he would go to sleep crying because his body hurt from where Master had thrown him around. It was the Master's world, they were just living in it. Half-blood slave orphans, with no education, no where to go. Wherever they went, they were looked at like dirt. That was all Nam ever knew. _

_"여기에 오__, 천만에__!"_

_The Master snapped, yanking Nam to his feet and shoving him towards the door. He had prayed for too long, now was time to work again. The child grabbed his tray and hurried out, whimpering softly as the multiple blisters on his hands peeled slightly. His hands hurt as he scurried to the kitchen. That was where he saw her again, the Master's daughter Ren. She was very nice with long dark hair and eyes, she had played with him once before the master caught them. _

_He had shrieked in horror and grabbed Nam by his curly hair, heaving him away from his child. Ren screamed that they had just been playing but Master didn't care, he just screeched in Nam's face over and over. _

_"한번도 내 자식__, 슬레이브 터치__! 한번도 내 자식 터치__!"_

_Never touch his child...never touch his child. Then he threw the boy to the ground and grabbed a gardening hose, then as his daughter screamed, he began to whip the shaking child until the boy was shaking and bleeding on the grass of the yard. Later that night, as Soo was bandaging his wounds, he looked at her and said solemnly. _

_"왜 그들은 다른 사람들처럼 보이지 않는 상처는 아이__?"_

_Why do they hurt a child? A child who is not like the others. Soo began to cry as she stroked her baby brother's curls, the same curls their mother had had before she had been killed. The anger of unrighteousness burned in her chest. How dare they hurt her little brother?! Just because he played with another child, just because he touched her hand? Just because he wasn't like the others? A child who is not like the children here. _

_-TimeSkip-_

_"여기에 이 중 하나__."_

_His Master hissed as he shoved the nine year old Nam into the arms of two other men, men who were selling slaves in the North of Mexico. Fourteen year old Soo screamed and tried to run to her little brother as he screamed and tried to run to her. But both siblings were held apart by what seemed like an endless amount of miles. Finally Soo managed to throw out her hand and scream one last desperate call to her baby brother as they tied him and shoved him into a car. _

_"나는 당신을 찾고 계신지남__!"_

_It was a promise to find her little brother one day and the last view she got of him was his tear stained face as he was shoved into a covered car. She couldn't even hope to stop the tears that flowed unheeded down her cheeks. Her chest clenched in sadness and she felt to her knees, praying that her baby brother would live. That she would be able to find him one day and take him home. _

_"그를 자유롭게 하소서__! 살려 주십시오__."_

_She wailed as she clutched at her heart, the young teen was so desperate_.

-TimeSkip-

Jimmy Palmer let a single tear fall from his eye as he looked at his hands, scarred from many years of work. He was free now, a free man in America. Most of these Americans didn't even know that North Korea still had slaves or that he, boring hum-drum Jimmy Palmer had been one.

"나 무료 음...I'm free."


	2. Chapter 2

_"What...is...your...name?"_

_The American woman annunciated every syllable as she tried to speak with the North Korean child that had been rescued from his illegal slave treatment. He had to be twelve at most, but he was so emaciated and bruised that he looked much younger. The child refused to speak to her, merely gazing up at her with blank eyes before letting his eyes fall to the floor again. She was just trying to help him, but she wasn't sure what language he spoke. Or if he even could speak..._

_"I...am...Ms...Rosalind...Keener...but...you...can ...call...me...Rosie."_

_She tried again and looked at the boy expectantly. But once again, the child said nothing. Only gazed at the floor, blearily. Then she thought of something, could the child have sight problems? What if he needed glasses? Finally as she was trying to think, she heard a small noise from the boy before he whispered hoarsely. _

_"My name...is Im-Yong Nam, son of Im-Yong Hao"_

_He whispered in heavily accented English, probably something he had picked up from somebody else. But to Rosie, it was a beginning, a start. That meant that maybe, just maybe, she could help this scared little boy. Rosie made sure to smile as she rested a hand on the little boy's knobby knee. _

_"It's nice to meet you Nam."_

-PresentDay-

"Hey guys!"

Jimmy Palmer smiled as he walked into the bullpen, his smile not even darkening as he saw the way McGee, Tony and Ziva were all talking in hushed and worried tones. But he did hurry over to join in the conversation. When he approached it was only Tony who grinned and slung his arm over Jimmy's shoulders, comfortingly.

"Hey Autopsy Gremlin."

"What's going on?"

Jimmy asked but he did smile even wider at the familiar recognition Tony gave him. The Senior Agent just shrugged at his question and it was McGee who decided to answer him. But the computer geek's next words made his heart clench in worry and sadness.

"We got a strange-looking letter from Korea, so Gibbs and Vance went to go get it translated."

The young M.E assistant froze, did something happen to Soo? Was she finally trying to contact him after all this time? Was she free too? All these thoughts rushed past the forefront of his mind, dizzyingly quick, so he barely had anytime to register any of it. All he was that the letter they were talking about was undoubtably his. But if it was Soo contacting him, how did she find out where he was? He had told nobody of his Korean origins. So how would she have known?

"Where did they go? Can one of you take me there?"

Jimmy whispered urgently, his words stressed and taut. The rest of the Team in the room, instantly noticed his change in demeanor, his eyes were full of a sadness that they had never seen there before and the young man's trademark smile had been completely wiped clean from his features. This wasn't the Jimmy they knew and loved. Something was dangerously wrong and it was Ziva who voiced it.

"Jimmy? Are you alright?"

_-FlashBack-_

_"Sonrisa, pequeña mocosa!"_

_The Mexican woman who was his new Mistress, glaring at him with seething eyes. His cheek was stinging from where she had slapped him across the face. He couldn't stop the tears that bubbled in his eyes and he looked at the floor in shame. The horse-faced woman grabbed him by the shoulders once again, and shook him roughly. Making him whimper loudly as she requested for him to smile at her. _

_"Sonrisa, esclavo. Usted no sabrá lo que es la verdadera tristeza! Usted no tiene el derecho de no sonreír! Le he dado todo!"_

_She sneered, grabbing his stinging face roughly with both hands. He didn't know sadness according to his mistress. He was just a piece of cattle for her, he was nothing. She gave him a mat to sleep on and chores to do. He was given everything a slave could ever want, but he didn't want to be a slave. _

_"나는 더 이상 노예 되고 싶지 않습니다__"_

_He whimpered in the language of his birth, but gave a low moan as his Mistress' hand darted out once again and slapped him on the same still burning cheek as before. Nam's hand reached up and ghosted over the irritated skin with gentle fingers. _

_"No me hablan en idioma que asco!"_

_She sneered in her own mother tongue. She didn't want him to speak Korean anymore. But he didn't want to learn her language, her language of harsh words that slide across the tongue. Letters and phrases and meanings that he couldn't understand...so finally he just nodded and did whatever his Mistress ordered. He was still a slave...a child who didn't look like the other children. A child who was different from them. He was still nothing. She always said that she would have Soo killed, his older sister, his only family. But he knew that she wouldn't, it was too much effort. _

_You don't waste effort on nothing..._


End file.
